An increasing number of businesses in all sectors of the economy have embraced the use of RFID technology. Inexpensive RFID tags can be attached to all kinds of goods and used to monitor their progress during manufacturing, shipment, and sale.
Retailers, in particular, have increasingly adopted RFID technology as a method by which they can track individual items in inventory, supplementing or even replacing the use of barcodes. By way of background, most retailers, specifically traditional “brick and mortar” locations that have significant real estate investments in physical store locations, are attempting to reinvent themselves. These retailers are defending their market share of a highly competitive environment by engaging in their own e-commerce businesses and changing the consumer experience with creative ways to entice the shopper into the store. Part of this reinvention is employing newer technology such as RFID to maintain higher inventory accuracy, and with the right solutions, provide more value to the consumer.
As RFID sees increasing adoption, some retailers may elect to use RFID to complement existing barcode technology, and others may elect to make a complete technology divesture of barcode technology and fully replace the use of barcodes for item identification. Retailers have relied on barcode technology for years as a means to automate processing of goods, and to enable faster and more accurate checkout processes. Barcodes are an optically dependent technology, meaning there must be some kind of optical scanning technology utilized to read and decode the various bars and spaces composing the barcode symbology.
A major advantage of RFID technology over barcode technology is that, with RFID, it is possible to interrogate an item without having to strategically position and place a barcode label or tag in front of a scanner as must be done with barcode reading. RFID does not depend on line of sight to gather information. If an item tagged with an RFID transponder is placed within an RF field, the transponder is excited and broadcasts its information. The term “tagged” is a general application meant to imply the item has been paired to an identifier. Unlike barcodes, RFID transponders or inlays may be embedded in the item, sewn into the item's own material, or bonded to the item in some fashion. This is something that is not possible—or, if possible, generally not desirable—with barcode technology, where the tag must be visible and accessible in order to be functional. A visible barcode that is permanently integrated into an item will generally impair the appearance of the item; this is not likely to be the case with RFID technology, because the RFID transponder can be much more easily hidden.
As more retailers embrace the use of RFID technologies, and subsequently implement individual item identification with RFID, new complimentary solutions must be developed to support the use of this technology.